Talk:Elizabeth II/GA3

GA Review

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Reviewers:

• RCSprinter123 (talk) 20:55, 31 January 2011 (UTC)
• Swarm ^X 23:11, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Checking against GA criteria

1. Well written:

a) Clear, yes. Concise, yes. Spelling and grammar, yes. A good start.

b) Lead section, yes. Perhaps needs shortening a little bit? But everything else in the Manual of Style?

2. Factually accuarate and verifiable:

a) There are plenty of references;

b) Plenty of references, from reliable sources for direct quotations, statistics, published opinion, counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged, and contentious material relating to living persons—science-based articles should follow the scientific citation guidelines;

c) And no original research -

3. Broad in its coverage

a) it addresses the main aspects of the topic;

b) it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style). Maybe!

4. Neutral:

It represents viewpoints fairly and without bias

5. Stable

Not really changing, some bot edits, but not edit wars.

6. Illustrated by images - only 14 images on whole page and most are portraits; but they are relevant to the topic and have suitable captions; all copyright and everything.

Now, there are five s and nine s, so the majority speaks for itself! This has a good chance of getting to Good Article status!

A few things here and there, but all in all...

Please reply to the discussion below. RCSprinter123 (talk) 20:55, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

I am just wondering if you have specifics where the article noes not pass GA? yet. Nergaal (talk) 21:55, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

How do you mean? Rcsprinter (talk) - (Reviewer) 20:47 1 February 2011

For example 2.c). Give me a list of specific problems and I will work on it. Nergaal (talk) 23:03, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

OK, right. Well...

1B - Lead section needs shortening a tiny bit to comply with the Manual of Style; sentences rearranged and paragraphs jiggling about... But still try and keep all the vital information in there.

2C - Not much, just needs verifying here and there, with the refs and all. All the sources need reviewing and classing as reliable, primary, secondary and tertiary sources. See Wikipedia:NOR for more info and a help guide on that subject;

3 - it does address the main aspects of the topic (the Queen), but goes into absolutely loads of detail that needs working on.

The prose size (text only) is 36kB. Queen Victoria has 41kB, and the FAs Edward VIII of the United Kingdom (31), George V of the United Kingdom (31), William IV of the United Kingdom (37), George III of the United Kingdom (35) each have about the same size. Considering she has had a long reign, I don't think the article is that over-detailed. Do you have specifics in mind? Nergaal (talk) 18:36, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Not really, I just thought that it seems to say an awful lot in detail, but I suppose your points are valid, she does have a long reign, and the other king/queen articles are about the same size, so you can leave it if you want, but I thought I had better just point it out as it needs to meet all criteria. RCSprinter123 (talk) 16:44, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

6 - And finally, all the pictures need reviewing for copyright and so on for a Good Article, so just whizz through those.

Work on all of the above and you will have yourself a Good Article.

Rcsprinter (talk) - (Reviewer) 16:36 2 February 2011

_{PS:Bet the queen'll be pleased!}

Thank you for your review. I can comment on two of your comments:

On point 1B, the lead is the result of extensive discussion (see for example present talk page and an archive). It will, I believe, be extremely difficult to get agreement on any changes.

On point 6, there are two disputed images: File:Lizwar.JPG and File:Queen Elizabeth-1946.JPG. They are both tagged for deletion. There are two fair use images: one of those tagged for deletion and File:Coat of arms of Canada.svg. All the others appear to have verifiable and correct public domain or creative commons licenses. DrKiernan (talk) 17:48, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Second reviewer

With all due respect to the original reviewer, I'm going to act as a second one and put the nomination on hold immediately until at least the photo issues (see above) are resolved. Copyright issues are some of the most serious issues that exist on Wikipedia. Also, because I feel this review was somewhat unclear with yes and no symbols, what exactly needs to be improved and what exactly the result of the review was (did it fail? is it on hold?) I'll review the article and share my additional thoughts, if I have any. It is quite a large article, after all. Again, the nomination will be on hold until at least the photo issues are resolved, and whether it remains on hold for a longer time, passes or fails will be determined then. Once the photo issues are resolved, I will let Rcsprinter have the final say regarding promotion (unless he allows me to). My thoughts on possible additional issues I see will follow shortly. Swarm ^X 23:11, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

The two images were deleted. The CoA one is not clear to me what to do with it. Nergaal (talk) 06:03, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

The copyright information appears to be incorrect. If it was user created, it isn't protected by copyright and shouldn't be used according to fair use policy. I've contacted the image's creator to request that they fix it. Swarm ^X 13:57, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

The Coat of arms image was created in 1994 and protected under Canadian Crown Copyright. No matter if I made the image or not, the issue of derivative works still comes into play and we have to license the image the way it is. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 16:13, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

While this would apply to logos, it does not apply to coats of arms. See my comments on Zscout's talk page. Swarm ^X 17:37, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Then my drawing is a faithful reproduction of said 1994 arms, so copyrighted it stays. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 17:43, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Swarm's review

GA review (see here for criteria)

---

This is a nice article, and it meets most of the GA criteria. Unfortunately, it does not qualify as a good article because it does not meet the stability criterion. Swarm ^X 15:20, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

   Is too much emphasis placed on the queen's role in the 15 other Commonwealth realms? I don't know, but it's currently in dispute.

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

   As of right now, 11 editors would support altering the lead to place more emphasis on her role in the UK. 15 would not support a change. This RfC reveals that, while there's no consensus for change, there's no consensus for its current form either. If the RfC ends with "no consensus," that does not mean "current lead endorsed." And, since issue clearly isn't going to go away, editors will have to agree on one, the other, or (the realistic option) compromise.
   Secondly, there has recently been a major edit war over the precise wording of "queen" (evidenced below). Out of the most recent 50 edits I sampled, 17 were edit warring revisions or alterations. That's more than a third!
   There's no way would I classify this article as stable when a third of the most recent 50 edits were edit warring.

6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

   A high level of instability is shown by the recent edit warring and the lack of consensus over the current lead's wording (evidenced by the sharply divided RfC). As stability is essential to a good article, I don't see any way to characterize this article as one. I want to make an important point: Considering the review from last year and Rcsprinter's list above, and my own careful review, I would pass this article if it was stable. For now, however, I will regrettfully close this as failed (assuming Rcsprinter wasn't going to return and pass it).

Edit war diffs
[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17]

So because a few people edit war the article loses its status. The stupidity of wikipedia is incredible at times. Perhaps it should not be an encyclopaedia for all to edit if that is such a problem. A bunch of people can move around wikipedia creating arguments on articles to remove their GA status. Simply wonderful. BritishWatcher (talk) 20:20, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Surely there is stability if the issue in question has been resolved and the edit wars are not on going? BritishWatcher (talk) 20:24, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

I find this approach puzzling. Nearly all of those edits relate to the activities of a single editor and the majority of other editors correcting him, on a single issue (the phrasing "Queen Regnant"). In fact what you see is the article stability being defended until consensus can be reached. The article itself is remarkably stable. It would appear based on this that only articles that have no controversy attaching to any element of them can be passed as GA/FA, is that correct? Jamesinderbyshire (talk) 21:51, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

The Good article criteria page has it down as one of the main criteria's. Not that I would recommend it but, if you want to sabotage a nomination that's the way to go about it. :) John Hendo (talk) 22:57, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

About the images, I already told you Swarm that the coat of arms of Canada is under Crown Copyright and cannot be placed under a free license. There is nothing "waiting to be resolved"; the Canadian Government already decided and we already decided at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/Image:Bras%C3%A3o_de_Armas_do_Canada.svg.png User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 00:23, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

@Britishwatcher There's no need to demean yourself by getting uncivil. Ongoing or recent edit wars are part of the "quick fail criteria". If you think articles that suffer from edit wars should still be allowed to be listed as good articles, you're free to start a discussion and try and get the guidelines changed by consensus. Apart from edit wars, "stability" means that there are no ongoing major content disputes (there's actually an RfC going on!). Also, the article didn't "lose its status," as it has never been listed as a good article. See the article milestones above. @James Edit warring is never acceptable on either side (unless dealing with vandalism). You can't edit war to "preserve stability". You are equally guilty of edit warring as everyone else. The edit war was a result of a legitimate content dispute that's closely divided. Anyone who thinks that this is all a result of "a single editor" clearly did not look at the diffs I provided. I mean, come on. I sorted through the history edit by edit so I would have evidence to back myself up! The least you can do is look at the evidence before challenging me. @Zscout The review has already been closed for a different reason. Anything having to do with the images is irrelevant at this point. Having a fair use rationale on a free image would not have impeded good article status anyway. That being said, I'll update the field since nothing's on hold.

Once all the disputes are resolved it can be renominated. I can't guarantee that it will pass obviously, but I can say, again, that in that situation I would list it as a GA. Swarm ^X 00:38, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

"Having a fair use rationale on a free image would not have impeded good article status anyway." As I told you, it is non-free and having a free license would not work. It was traced from a PNG file, so derivative work of something copyrighted. Please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Files_for_deletion/2007_September_4#Image:Coat_of_arms_of_Canada.svg. You can ask someone to make a drawing of it, I would suggest http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Sodacan. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 04:09, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I understand that. The confusion came from how you worded your response, rather than saying "it was traced from a PNG file" you said "It was a faithful reproduction." I assumed that meant "I drew it" as opposed to "I traced it." Are we on the same page now? Swarm ^X 07:23, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Yes. When I meant Faithful reproduction/trace, it was of the official image published by Canadian Heritage. I sent a message to that above user asking for a redrawing of the arms so a free version could be possible. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 13:25, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Oh, alright, thanks for doing that. Swarm ^X 22:12, 7 February 2011 (UTC)